


A Mystery

by RobotSquid



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Gen, Sorey Learns Mikleo's True Name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 20:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8415346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobotSquid/pseuds/RobotSquid
Summary: A terribly belated fic for my very good friend Echo <3Silly conversations between teenage boys in the middle of the night usually yield deep secrets.





	

“Mikleo?  Hey, Mikleo, are you awake?”

Mikleo inhaled, then sighed slowly.  Sorey was tapping his shoulder, tugging him out of his dream.  “What is it?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

“Why do you mean ‘why not’?  I just can’t.  I’m thinking.”  Their bed creaked as Sorey sat up and leaned over Mikleo’s shoulder.

“Why can’t you think in the morning?”  Mikleo mumbled.

“Because then I’m too tired to think.”

“Well,” Mikleo asked, conceding to the fact that this conversation was happening whether he liked it or not, “what are you thinking about?”

The bed shook as Sorey suppressed a giggle.  “It’s stupid.”

“I’m already awake, so you may as well tell me.”  Mikleo turned over onto his back.

“Okay, well….”  Sorey flipped onto his stomach and rested his chin on his forearms.  “I was wondering, you know how some seraphs have green hair or blue hair?”

“Yeah….”  Mikleo narrowed his eyes, no clue what was on Sorey’s mind.

Sorey lowered his voice.  “Do you think their hair is that color all over?”

“Are you serious right now?”  Mikleo covered his face with one hand as Sorey burst into much louder laughter.  “You woke me up to ask me that?”

“Well, I can’t ask anybody about it!  So it’s been bugging me all day.”

“I think you need to get some better priorities.”

“My priorities are just fine.  It’s healthy to have an inquisitive mind.”

“True, but—” Mikleo rolled back over, facing away from Sorey dismissively “—you know what they say about curiosity and cats.”

“But satisfaction—” Sorey said, crawling over and leaning on Mikleo’s side “—brought him back.”

Mikleo groaned, “What?”

“Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back.”  He poked Mikleo’s cheek.  “You always leave out that last part.”

“You’re never satisfied.”  Mikleo rolled back over and pushed Sorey off him.

Sorey laughed again and propped up his elbow on the mattress.

“And I’m wide awake now thanks to you,” Mikleo said.  He reached out and shoved his palm gently against Sorey’s forehead.

“Yeah, well…you’d miss me if I wasn’t around.”

“Well, that’s no secret….”  Mikleo averted his eyes, avoiding the insufferable smile Sorey had on his face.

Sorey picked at a loose thread in the sheets, suddenly out of things to say.  Mikleo hadn’t expected Sorey to fall so quiet so soon, and he glanced back at him.  It was dim in their room, but Mikleo thought he could see color filling Sorey’s cheeks.

“Hey, so…” Sorey mumbled, trying to sound casual.  “About that.  There was actually something else I wanted to tell you.  I meant to tell you earlier today, but I got distracted.”

“Thinking about the color of hair?” Mikleo teased.

Sorey laughed, but it was forced.  He wasn’t looking at Mikleo.  “Yeah, well…there was some other stuff, too.  I don’t know, it’s stupid, just forget it.”

“You can’t do that.”  Mikleo smacked Sorey lightly on the shoulder.  “Come on, tell me or I’ll freeze you.”

Sorey grabbed the spot Mikleo had hit in mock pain.  “Aaaah, fine, if you’re gonna beat it out of me,” he pouted.  “Okay, well…I overheard Gramps talking to Mason.  I wasn’t eavesdropping or anything, I didn’t mean to listen for so long.”

“Well, what were they saying?” Mikleo asked after a prolonged pause.

“He was asking Mason to look into building a few more houses in the village, and he might have said something about…you and me probably shouldn’t share a room anymore.”  He laughed, but it was even more forced than before.  “I mean, I don’t know if he really meant it or anything, but….”

“What?” Mikleo laughed, trying to sound affronted, but the words cut straight to his heart.  “Why wouldn’t we share a room?  Are you sure you heard him right?”

“Yeah, I heard him right.”  Sorey nodded and started picking at the bedsheet threads again.

“But why though?” Mikleo asked again.  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Sorey shrugged.  “Something about us getting too old.”

“Too old for what?  That’s a stupid reason.”

“I know, right?  And plus, in seraph years, you’re still like…a baby.”  He grinned, then reached over and pinched Mikleo’s cheeks.  “Baby Mikleo.”

Mikleo grabbed his wrist.  “I will punch you in the face.”

“You couldn’t reach it.”

“Now I’m really gonna do it.”

Mikleo lunged for Sorey’s face, only to be swiftly intercepted by a jab to the side of his stomach.  Mikleo yelped and jerked back, wrapping his arms around himself to protect from further tickling.  Sorey dug his fingers beneath Mikleo’s arm and tickled him again.  Mikleo punched aimlessly in between breaths of laughter, eventually hitting Sorey right in the gut.

“Oh no!  I’m sorry, Sorey!” Mikleo laughed, sitting up and gently patting Sorey’s shoulder.

“Aah…I deserved that,” Sorey said with a wince.

“Oh, no doubt.”

However, Mikleo’s smile quickly faded as Sorey giggled.  “I don’t want to stop sharing a room with you,” he mumbled.  “Why would Gramps say something like that?”

“I don’t know,” Sorey replied, sitting up and facing Mikleo, their knees touching.  “I thought all day about whether to tell you or not.  But it was making me too sad.”

Mikleo smirked.  “Is that really why you woke me up?”

“Nah, I still really want to know about the hair thing.”  Sorey’s eyes widened suddenly.  “Hey, I just realized:  you could tell me!”

“Excuse me?”  Mikleo leaned back, affront written all over his face.  How were they back on this topic again?

Sorey reached out and took hold of Mikleo’s bangs in between his fingertips.  “Are you this color all over?”

“ _What?_ ”

Sorey laughed.  “Now you’re red all over.”

“I’m not telling you that!  Wh-why do you even want to know!?”

“Oh come on!  I’ll tell you something embarrassing about me if you do.”

“So you admit it’s embarrassing!”  Mikleo covered his face with his hands as Sorey continued to laugh.

“How about I go first?”  Sorey leaned back, planting his palms in the soft blanket.  He tilted his head up towards the ceiling, thinking hard.  “Let’s see, something embarrassing….”

“It shouldn’t take you that long to come up with something, really,” Mikleo teased, though he was still blushing from before. “And why are you changing the subject?”

“Oh yeah!” Sorey jerked forward, ignoring the question.  “The other day I borrowed your coat while you were running an errand for Gramps.  It was too small and I almost ripped a seam.”

Mikleo blinked.  “That’s not embarrassing.  And I didn’t know about this!  When did you do that?  Which coat was it?”

“Wait, I have another one,” Sorey insisted.  “I was playing with one of the swords we found in the ruins and I accidentally threw it, and it went right through Lawrence’s window.”  He cringed.  “But it was just ornamental and not actually sharp.”

“Sorey,” Mikleo said, his expression flat.  “Do you have any concept of what ‘embarrassing’ is supposed to mean?  So far you’re just telling me about times you broke other people’s stuff.”

“It was embarrassing to me!”

“Well, it still doesn’t warrant an answer to your original question.”

Sorey pouted and it was a real struggle for Mikleo to keep from grinning.

“Well, what _will_ that get me?”  Sorey shuffled a bit closer.  Mikleo leaned back as his personal space was steadily invaded.

“Uh….”  He averted his eyes from Sorey’s gaze, hoping his blush wasn’t visible in the dim light.  “I don’t know.  What do you want?”

“I don’t know.  Tell me what you’re thinking about.”  Sorey reached out and pushed the bangs away from Mikleo’s forehead, gazing at the circlet underneath.

“I’m not really thinking about anything,” Mikleo replied, unperturbed by Sorey’s touch.  It wasn’t quite a true statement.  His mind was racing with a thousand different thoughts, but before he could grab onto one it flew away into the rest of the swarm.  Sorey was touching the jewels on his circlet, tracing the long lines of the metal with his fingertips.

“I guess I’m just…” Mikleo said after a while, “thinking that you tend to wake me up a lot.”

“Do I?  I’m sorry.”  Sorey’s eyes were still fixated on the circlet.

“No, it’s…it’s actually fine.”  A pause.  “I have these weird dreams a lot.”

“You do?”  Sorey put his hand back down.  “About what?”

“I’m not really sure.  I think it’s just a lot of fire, and I can sort of hear a woman screaming, and then there’s a really sharp pain all over my body.  Most of the time that’s it, and then I just don’t dream at all for the rest of the night.”

There was a heavy silence between them.  “I guess,” Mikleo continued, staring down at his hands, “I’ve never told anyone about them before.”

“Why not?”  Sorey’s head was tilted slightly.

“They never really bothered me that much.  Because sometimes you wake me up to ask me a dumb question in the middle of it, and then I don’t think about it anymore.  And then whenever the dream itself wakes me up, you’re just….”  _You’re right there._   The rest of the sentence lingered on the precipice of his tongue, but he swallowed it back.

For a long time, Sorey didn’t say anything.  Mikleo scratched the back of his head and looked away, saying, “Aah…never mind.  I don’t know why I told you all that.  It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Hey, no it’s not!” Sorey exclaimed, grabbing Mikleo’s hands.  “I’m sorry, I just didn’t know what to say.  That’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Mikleo, not at all!  In fact, you want to know something?  After I overheard what Gramps was saying today, about splitting us up, I went behind his house and I must have cried for like, an hour.”

Mikleo couldn’t resist a little smile.  “You did?”

“Okay, well… _maybe_ not like, the entire hour….”

“No, no, I’m not making fun of you, I just…that’s kind of sweet.”

Sorey blushed.  “Well don’t tell anybody.  And I won’t tell anybody either.  About your thing.”

“I appreciate that,” Mikleo replied, squeezing Sorey’s hand.

“It’s weird, I kinda feel like I need to tell you everything now or I won’t get to later, even though I know that’s not true.”

“Everything like what?”

“Uh…never mind.”  Sorey shook his head and flashed Mikleo a reassuring smile.  “I’m just thinking out loud.”

“That’s the only way you think.”

“Heh…yeah…you know, Mikleo, nothing will change.  Nothing important anyway.”

Mikleo sighed, suddenly exhausted.  “I know.  But we don’t have to like it.  I don’t like the thought of you going away.”

“Hey, I’m not going anywhere!  Gramps can make us live in separate houses but he didn’t say that we couldn’t be next to each other.  So you better leave your window unlocked for me.”

Mikleo laughed.  “Yeah.  I will.”

“I’m not leaving,” Sorey promised.  “Not today.  And not tomorrow.  Or the day after.”

Mikleo nodded wordlessly.  There was another silence between them, one Sorey would have been content to let it go on all night.  The only problem was Mikleo was increasingly tightening his grip on his hands to the point of discomfort.

“Hey,” Sorey eventually said with a wince, “are you sure you’re all right?”

“I want to tell you something,” Mikleo said, his violet eyes bright with conviction.  “I’ve made up my mind.”

“Yeah?  What is it?”

“I want to tell you my true name.”

Sorey’s eyes widened.  “What?  Why?  You’re not supposed to—”

Mikleo nodded.  “I know, but…I’ve always wanted to, and Gramps and everybody else always told me not to.  But it’s _my_ name, isn’t it?  I should be able to decide who knows it, and I want you to know it.”

Now it was Mikleo who was leaning into Sorey’s space, his grip tightening with every passing second.  There was no arguing with Mikleo’s stubbornness—though that had never stopped Sorey from trying—but Sorey tried to come up with some reason why he probably shouldn’t do this.

Sorey knew about the seraphim’s names, in the sense that he knew they existed.  He didn’t exactly know what they were _for_ , only that it was a secret as closely guarded as one’s own soul.  He had always wondered about Mikleo’s, ever since the day he learned about them.  Deep down, he wished that it could be something Mikleo would share with him, if for no other reason than that Sorey couldn’t stand not knowing something about him.

The fact that Mikleo was freely offering it to him almost felt profane.  But he wasn’t going to deny that he wanted to accept it. 

“…Y-you’re sure you want me to know it?” Sorey asked.  “You trust me like that?”

“I trust you enough to follow you into deep, dark ruins, don’t I?”  Mikleo chuckled.  “Of course I trust you, Sorey.  And I’ve wanted to tell you for years.  …So if you want to know, I’ll tell you.”

“Of course!” Sorey blurted out, a bit too eagerly, he thought.  “I mean, as long as you’re okay with telling me….”

“Yes, I am.  So…come here.”

Heart racing in anticipation, Sorey leaned forward into what little space was left between them. 

Mikleo put his lips by Sorey’s ear, their cheeks touching, and whispered:  “Luzrov Rulay.”

There was a breathless instant of awe.  Sorey mouthed the words silently, afraid to speak them aloud.  He was certain he had never heard such a beautiful sound in his life as that name.  Mikleo’s heartbeat pulsed against Sorey’s head through his temple.  When Mikleo came away, his pale face was almost entirely red.

“It means,” he continued, “Mikleo the Enforcer.”

“That’s you, for sure,” Sorey replied with a wide smile.  “I like that name.  A lot.”  _It fits you, it’s beautiful and elegant and graceful, just like you are…._

Mikleo grinned and averted his eyes, his blush deepening.  “So…yeah.  There you go.  Don’t tell Gramps I told you.”

“I won’t, I promise!”  Sorey whispered the name under his breath.  It excited him just to feel the way his tongue moved to pronounce the words.  It was like they had forged a sacred pact, he and Mikleo.  Nobody could take this from either of them.  “It’s so pretty.”

“It’s all right, I guess.”  Mikleo looked back at him.  “But I’m glad you like it.”

“I do!  I love it, actually.”  He whispered it again.

“You know, you can say it out loud.  Nothing’s going to happen.”

“I know, but…I feel like I shouldn’t, for some reason.  It feels sacred.  Like it’s something I’m not supposed to touch.”

Mikleo laughed.  “You’re a sap, you know that?”

“What can I say?”  Sorey shrugged and playfully shoved Mikleo’s shoulder.

“But now that you know it…it’s special.  I’m trusting you with it, okay?”

“I’ll protect it no matter what.  It’ll be like a little piece of you that I carry with me.”

Mikleo stifled a laugh.  “That was even sappier than what you said before.”

“I’m just being honest, though!”

“We should probably try to get back to sleep,” Mikleo said, pulling his hands out of Sorey’s grip.  “I’m still tired, you know.”

“All right, all right.”  Sorey stretched out his legs and laid back down.  “But really, Mikleo?  Please don’t worry about the room thing.  We’ll never be far apart, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know.”  Mikleo settled back on his side of the bed and laid down.  “You’d be lost without me, anyway.”

Sorey snuggled up close to Mikleo, drawing him in for a tight hug.  “Goodnight, Mikleo the Enforcer,” he said teasingly.

“Goodnight, Sorey the Sap,” Mikleo replied with a huff.  He returned the hug, then wriggled out of Sorey’s grip, turning over to face the other direction.

“Oh,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Sorey, “and by the way:  I am the same color all over.”

“ _I knew it!_ ”

**Author's Note:**

> They are pure and perfect and I love them.


End file.
